Essence
by CCWhite
Summary: John and Dean are gone and Sam is left alone to hunt the demon. this is my first try on this board, so if I screw up please forgive. However please feel free to criticize as you see fit, I'm tough. ONE SHOT


**Disclaimer; **I do not own, yada, yada yada, it's all the same. I also take no blame.

Essence

The first one that met Mary after the semi crashed and demolished the Impala was her husband. John had been caught right at the core of the collision, and when the semi had plowed into the passenger side of the car the force had driven his ribs into his right lung, and had caused his head to smash into the side window with enough force to crack his skull and allow a piece of bone to break and enter his brain, effectively ending John Winchester. And so his wife met him, and greeted the man she hadn't seen in 23 years. She saw the pain and bitterness fade from his countenance as he walked toward her, and the angry man was replaced by the loving husband she remembered. John looked at his wife with a joyous awareness of being with her again after all these long, cold, lonely years. She looked back with love and a bit of admonishment in her eyes. She had much to talk to John about the raising of their sons. But her smile was warm and tender.

The second one to meet Mary was her oldest child Dean. Although he was in the back seat and had endured the least of the impact, the injuries the demon had inflicted on him were serious enough to ensure heavy blood loss. The flow had started to ebb before the accident, but the jarring caused by the crash had aggravated his internal injuries and restarted the bleeding. After a while there wasn't enough blood for the heart to pump and it had simply stopped. Dean walked toward his parents with a slow step and a heavy heart knowing he was leaving the one person he cared for the most behind. As he stopped and looked back he hoped that help would arrive soon, that they would be able to save him after all and he could keep taking care of Sammy. But after a while, as nobody came and his body started getting cold and stiff, he realized it was too late. So Dean looked back and pondered his situation, knowing he had a job to do, he had to be there for Sammy. And far be it for Dean Winchester to let something like Death stop him from doing his job.

The demon stood near the crash site and gazed at his work. He sensed only one life force, that of the youngest Winchester, his prize, and he smiled in his victory. He heard the distant wail of the sirens and left the site, allowing the humans to take care of their own, and when Sam was strong enough again, when he became bitter and vulnerable now that he no longer had his father and brother to watch over him, he would be easy picking for the demon to snatch and bring into his fold. So he left Sam, twisted and bleeding in the wreck that was once his brother's pride, left him to be taken care of, and healed and made ready for the taking.

Sam lay in a blissful coma for a week, where the truth lay hidden in the folds of unconsciousness. When he woke up he was given a few day's grace of forgetfulness before he began to wonder where his father and brother were. He looked at the nurses and doctors around him, and when they returned looks filled with sympathy and hushed whispers he began to be afraid. He tried to feel his brother, as he could so many times in the past, even when they were separated by thousands of mile, but he felt nothing. The emptiness gave him his first clue. His doctor to whom he pleaded for information gave him the truth and Sam felt what his older brother had always feared, the crushing pain of loneliness and loss.

After a few weeks at the hospital Sam was ready to leave. The young man held the compassion of the staff as they looked upon the one who survived the horrible accident, who had lost so much. The one who didn't smile, didn't talk and looked so heart broken that when it was found out he had no insurance, the hospital staff took pity on him and swallowed the tab. They had mended his body, but it was his heart and soul that needed healing the most, and they weren't able to heal those wounds.

It was Missouri who stood by him at the burial. Sam looked as the caskets were lowered, his brother's comment echoing through the chambers of his memories, and he almost laughed at the irony of the fact that it was _he_ who was burying his father and brother instead. Missouri looked up at him with a mixture of sympathy and agony, not knowing how to alleviate the pain and sorrow which only time could ease but never take away. Sam stayed with her for a few days, then took the bus to Bobby's house to reclaim the Impala. She waved goodbye from the bus station, confusion and fear in her eyes, because Sam wasn't just Sam anymore.

Bobby had heard of the accident and claimed the car from the junkyard soon after. It was at the dismay of the yard owner that he hadn't been able to open the trunk, no matter what he tried. Bobby could only breathe in relief as he realized the weapons were never discovered and the secret stash was safe. In the trunk he found the Colt, its last bullet still snuggled in the chamber, waiting for its victim. Bobby had worked on the Impala as Sam was working at getting well enough to come and get her, because for Sam, there was no other alternative. The car belonged to him now, and he would claim it, as was his right.

The demon looked on at his wayward son noticing the ache, the susceptibility and bided its time. Soon enough, Sam would be ready.

Sam started hunting again. The Winchesters never left a job undone, and this was one job Sam took to heart. He no longer had Dean to be his conscious, and Sam, once a warm and loving boy had become cold and calculating, hunting with an ease he had never shown before and a confidence of someone who had hunted as long as his father instead of himself. Sam never noticed how his skills had improved, never wondered why he felt the werewolf seconds before it attacked, why he turned and shot the hellhound just before it jumped him, never questioned the intuition that would tell him to duck the last second before the Wendigo could swipe his head off. He hunted, his skills razor sharp, his sensed keener than they'd ever been. Sam did notice that his skill at taking the weapons apart, cleaning them and putting them back together came with the easy grace and speed he had always admired in his brother, but he never questioned why.

Sam never wondered why he never lost at poker games anymore, why he could hustle pool with the best and win. Why those who were angered when they took their loss personal never confronted him, but only looked at him with side-glances, not daring to challenge. Except for that one time when some over confident fool and gone after Sam with a pool cue and Sam had merely slapped it aside and surprised the man with a mean right hook that had laid the unsuspecting guy flat on his back and knocked out for at least five minutes. When Sam left the bars, he never noticed the grudging respect of the men, and the open lust of the women who stared at him. Sam didn't question why suddenly he could pick up women with the ease his brother had shown. He didn't care anymore that he would pick up women who were more than willing, fuck them tenderly or harshly, depending on his mood and theirs, and leave them in the end with no more regret than he had for the pool games he won. Sam just wasn't Sam anymore.

The demon watched and laughed, feeling his prey becoming ready for the fold.

Sam hunted everything he could find, but demons became his specialty. Sam never wondered why he could sense a demon-possessed person so easily now, how he could find demons no matter where they hid. He never questioned why he was able to recite the exorcism rituals with perfection without even looking into his father's journal, never noticed that the symbols he drew to entrap the demons, to imprison them and send them back to hell worked every time, and he had no idea where they came from. Yet he used them and they worked.

In the demon world Sam became the enemy to be feared. They avoided the demon that had killed Sam's family, knowing it was the one responsible for this new adversary. They hid in the shadows hoping the demon-hunter wouldn't find them, fearing he might, and so they burrowed even deeper into the shadows, buying their time, knowing he was human after all, and no matter what, sooner or later whether from old age or because he got careless, he would die. They knew how to wait, because for them, there was no other alternative.

For Sam, the demon that killed his family became the Demon with a capital D, and it would pay. Sam hunted the Demon's minions and children, methodically taking them out, one by one. Different methods, different ways to kill them, but they all died. The Demon looked on first in consternation, then with fear as it saw its own family destroyed by the one it was sure it would claim as its own at the end. The Demon started taking the offensive against Sam, but could never catch him, and Sam never wondered at the fact that he could avoid the Demon no matter what, that when he and the Demon met, it would be on Sam's terms. The Demon raged, but felt helpless and for the first time in a millennium it began to fear for its existence.

When Sam finally confronted the Demon he was ready. As the evil being looked at Sam understanding grew and it saw its mistake. In killing Dean, the Demon has released him from the confinements of his physical being and what was once one mind/soul in two bodies had been united. Now what was Sam and Dean had become SamDean, the brilliance of the hunter welded with the brilliance of the thinker and a weapon had been forged more powerful than would have been possible had Dean survived. The Demon looked into Sam's blue-green eyes and saw the hazel-green behind them. Sam had become more than Sam and more than Dean. A shiny bright sword aimed straight for the Demon and its kind, and it had never noticed till now, hearing its own death knell. As the Demon felt the Colt bullet hit its heart, its last thoughts were too late, too late it had realized its mistake, too late it had noticed the power it had unleashed against its own family, against itself and all it could do was scream in rage as it was annihilated. Sam allowed himself a small smile of cold satisfaction as he watched the Demon die.

Now that the hunt was over, when the demons were still in hiding Sam had a chance to go back to his life. But he had grown accustomed to the darkness, to the shadows. After killing the Demon Sam had felt a part of himself fade away, it felt almost like consent to go back to his life, the one he always wanted. Yet looking at normal life was like looking into a window with sunshine and warmth while he stood outside in the dark and cold. He wanted to go in, but knew it would remind him of Jess and Dean, and he couldn't bear that. So he stayed in the dark, living at night, hunting.

It was on one of these hunts, while his instinct told him to run, to turn and look, alarms ringing loudly, that the young man decided to ignore them all and let the Wendigo snap his neck. Sam died before his body fell on the cold, snowy ground.

The first face Sam had planned to see, when he could see again was Jess'. He expected to see her long blond hair, and blue gaze, instead he was met with his brother's laughing green eyes and shit-ass smile. He expected to hear "Sam" from Jess' mouth, spoken soft and warm, instead he heard his brother's gravelly voice, "Yo, bro. What took you so long?" And Sam laughed with an easiness that he hadn't felt since so long ago in that cabin where they met the demon wearing their father's face. He shook his head still smirking while walking beside his brother as they made their way toward Jess and their parents.

"Jerk"

"Bitch"


End file.
